Tales of romance: Auckland Philharmonia enchants with Glinka, Tchaikovsky, Wagner - William Dart

Brass and percussion sections shone in Auckland Philharmonia's romantic repertoire. Photo / Sav Schulman, Auckland Philharmonia

• Antony Hermus conducted the Auckland Philharmonia in a Love Stories concert featuring Glinka, Tchaikovsky and Wagner.
• Glinka’s Russlan and Ludmilla overture and Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet showcased energetic and emotive performances.
• Henk de Vlieger’s symphonic portrait of Wagner’s Die Meistersinger highlighted the opera’s themes with a magnificent performance.

Earlier this week, on radio, Dutch conductor Antony Hermus gave a telling preview of tonight’s Love Stories concert.

Auckland Philharmonia’s programme of Glinka, Tchaikovsky and Wagner focused on different aspects of love, he explained, and, on the night, Glinka’s Ruslan and Ludmila overture certainly fulfilled the maestro’s promise of energy and action.

Dashed through in less than five minutes, fired by Dominic Jacquemard’s thundering timpani, this was an uber-ebullient launch. Flickering woodwind frolicked between rushing violins, with the violas’ sonorous second subject reminding us that Glinka wrote a much-cherished sonata for this instrument.

Hermus had talked of secret love with Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet, the pangs of which registered from its opening pages, as stabbing strings broke into the woodwind cool.

Tonight, Tchaikovsky’s deft realisation of Shakespeare’s drama was laid out over admirably taut rhythms that accommodated tumultuous outbursts later on. And there was no resisting that luscious love theme, with sobbing horn.

The chances of Wagner’s Die Meistersinger being staged here in the near future are extremely thin, so perhaps Henk de Vlieger’s symphonic portrait from the opera might be seen as a crowd-pleasing compensation.

Using only 53 minutes of the opera’s four-and-a-half-hours, much of the original score has been brutally cut. However, such was the glow from tonight’s magnificent performance, including a solo trumpet issuing forth from the balcony and the brass standing during a triumphant finale, that it matched Hermus referencing a Wagnerian love for art, community and humanity.

Wagner’s complex orchestral writing conveys a detailed narrative and incisive character portrayals through his weave of leitmotiv themes. Yet singers bring an important theatrical context, missing here. The opening melody of Walther’s Prize Song was exquisitely rendered by Jonathan Cohen’s clarinet, followed by strings at their richest, yet at times we might have been immersed in lush Richard Strauss waltztime.

De Vlieger’s emphasis on ceremonial music and dances made for a most enjoyably medley, that might hopefully have some searching out the opera itself.